Gina Trapani

Reader Kevin's got stacks of burned data CDs and DVDs, but doesn't want to have to switch them in and out of his CD drive to find a particular file. His solution is to make an image of the disks' folder structure and files - just the names, with no content - for easy searches.

Kevin lists the steps for us:

1. I use Robocopy to create snapshot of the burned disc. The snapshot includes the information of discs' directory tree structure and the files with zero-length. The command I use is

Robocopy [source] [destination] /CREATE /E

The [source] is the burned disc location, and the [destination] is where the snapshot resides. If you would like to specify how deep the directory be copied, you can add "/Lev:?" as parameter (? is the directory level you specified).

2. After the snapshot is created, a label is assigned to the snapshot and the disc, so that the snapshot and the burn disc can be associated.

3. To find a file on disc, I search the snapshot library first. Because all the discs' information is stored on the hard disk, it is very easy to find the file using Windows common search function. Once I know which snapshot the file is in, I can find the burned disc by the label.

Robocopy is one of the Win2003 resource kit tools and the replacement for xcopy in Vista. If you're not into using the command line, hit the link for more on the Robocoby GUI. Thanks, Kevin!—Gina Trapani